Costumes
by Elisabeth Harker
Summary: Laurie helps Jo find a costume for her latest theatrical venture. One-shot.


_Notes: I clearly don't own Little Women! This story is mostly a result of reading one too many essays on gender roles within the novel. I'd love to know what people think of it._

It wasn't long after his introduction into the Pickwick portfolio that Jo invited Laurie to join in her newest theatrical venture.

"After all," she said, handing him the script, "I can't think of a better fellow to play Rodrigo, and much as I like doubling on roles, I think it'll do our stage good to introduce a fresh face."

She was sitting besides him on the couch, and though she was attempting to look serious she was also fidgeting in a way that Laurie knew she only did when she was irrepressibly excited. He would have liked to watch her, but she was too involved in watching _him_ for any reaction to her script to make it safe.

The truth was, Laurie had found himself wanting to look at Jo a great deal lately. It hadn't been that way at first, though certainly he'd found her interesting from the moment he'd met her, and he'd made faster friends with her than he had near anyone else in his young life. It was only lately that he'd found thoughts of her occupying him so that Brooke scolded him on being careless with his school work, and it had only been a few days ago that she had caught him actually staring at her for the first time. She'd given him a funny scowl, and suggested that it was getting too late for him to be over at his house, and that brief exile had given him more than enough reason to want to try and be in her presence without _thinking_ about her.

"It's a good play," he said, as much to distract himself as anything.

"Wouldn't have thought you'd be able to tell one way or another just by looking at the title page," She replied. Instead of shoving him, as she looked ready to do, she reached over his shoulder and turned the first page of the manuscript for him. "Have you forgotten how to do this?"

"I'm only trying to give each word its due. Just look at this one," he said, pointing to the first word he saw, which just happened to be 'the'. "It's extraordinary! I'm not sure how…"

And he would have continued, but the shove he'd narrowly escaped earlier hit him with full force, and the best he could manage was a muffled groan, followed by even more muffled laughter.

"You're as distracted lately as any lovelorn heroine I've ever written," Jo said, not for a moment dreaming how close she'd come to guessing the source of her friend's affliction. "If you don't want to read it, throw it aside, but don't waste the whole afternoon staring off into nothing."

To Laurie's credit, he did read at that point, and he was soon able to give the piece the attention that it warranted, even though Jo spent a full three minutes leaning over his shoulder before wandering off to look out the window.

"Who will you play?" Laurie asked when he was about halfway through.

"I suppose I'll _have_ to take Christoph. None of the girls will be willing to take him." Laurie did not need to turn around to see her smile, because he could hear it in her voice.

As it turned out Jo's casting choices held true. The following two weeks passed very quickly, for Jo insisted on rehearsing whenever all parties involved could catch a bit of free time away from their necessary chores and obligations. Though Meg protested often that she was too old for theatre romps, both Jo and Laurie agreed that she was lovely in her role, and the elegance she brought to it would make their little production legendary before they knew it. The same could not be said for Amy, who recited her few lines in a wooden manner, at least when she wasn't complaining about those lines, and trying to convince Jo to cut from her play everything she found particularly exciting in favor of a more delicate storyline. Beth did not act, but a more loving and dedicated audience member could not be found.

Soon the blocking was mapped out, and their lines were memorized. Laurie thought that they were more than ready to perform, but Jo had other ideas.

"I don't know what I'll wear for the part," She told him, as they were going through her costumes from past productions, in a search for foil jewelry to adorn Meg.

"Well, you're the one who's done this before. What did you wear last time?"

At that Jo stood up, the bits of jewelry that had been resting on her lap already fluttering harmlessly to the floor. She dashed off to the corner on the room, and came back holding a pair of boots which looked as though they'd been worn one too many times.

"These used to belong to a real actor!" she said, handing the prized items over to Laurie so that he could examine them. "I'll wear them, of course. I'd like to think of something different for the rest of it, though. Christoph is a villain, but he's a _dashing_ villain. I've not written another one like him yet. My last five villains have all been costumed almost exactly the same, and my heroes as well for that matter. I say it's about time for a change!"

"You could borrow something of mine," Laurie suggested.

"You think I could?" She asked, her face lighting up instantly.

"I don't see why not."

And that was how Laurie found himself seated on his bed, watching Jo as she went through his wardrobe. Occasionally she would stop and hold one of his shirts against her thin frame, trying to judge how it was likely to fit her. In Laurie's experience, there was nothing unusual about a girl showing interest in clothing. Jo, however, was not a usual girl, and he'd never known her to care two pins about what she or anyone else was wearing, provided it wasn't on the verge of falling apart. For that reason it was very odd for him to see Jo going through his cloths with keen and obvious interest. Odd, but in a way that made him feel warm inside, even more so because she did nothing to keep him from looking at her as much as he wanted just then.

"I wish that my shoulders weren't so small," Jo said, after she'd deemed four of his shirts unsuitable for her purposes. She'd stopped in front of his mirror, and was squaring the aforementioned shoulders as if she could make them broader through sheer determination. She glanced up at him, and he copied her stance, which made her flush and turn back to the wardrobe immediately.

"I don't know," he said, "Just think how ridiculous it'd look if somebody stuck my shoulders down on your body."

"If I was a man, it wouldn't look ridiculous at all," she responded so pointedly that he had to smile. Something about the way she'd said it made him want to touch her hair, which hung wildly about her shoulders, for she'd forgotten to pin it that day.

"If you were a man, then you wouldn't be Jo, and just where do you think that would leave the rest of us?"

She spun around and sat down next to him on his bed, still holding onto his shirt. "I'd still be Jo," she said. "I just wouldn't be Josephine any longer. You and I would have capital times together, even better than we do now, for if I was a boy I could do just as I pleased and nobody would mind."

Laurie wanted to argue that everyone who mattered all ready liked it when she did as she pleased; after all, it was her ambitions and oddities that provided the rest of them with plays, and newspapers, and fun.

"I like you as a girl," he said instead, and was rewarded with a short, incredulous laugh.

"I don't so much mind being a girl, but I can't help but fear one of these days I'll wake up a boring little woman, and I won't be able to go back. I think if I can just get my novel published, it'll be all right. I hate to think that I might one day find myself running a boring house, with a boring husband, cleaning, and cooking, and sewing boring socks day in and day out. And I wouldn't even be good at it! One night I'm sure I'd decide to try and make dinner for my husband, because that's what wives do. Only, somehow I'd mistake arsenic for vanilla extract, and end up poisoning the poor man, and be sent off to prison for my troubles."

Clearly she meant for him to laugh at her then. She was waiting for it, but Laurie couldn't quite manage it. She looked too serious just then for Laurie to take her lightly.

"I think you'll be a famous authoress before you know it," he said rather grandly. "And then maybe you can forgo the boring husband and marry an interesting one instead."

"I don't think there is such a thing," she said, but at least she seemed happy again. "At least for me there isn't. Not that men aren't interesting… you are at least, but Meg's more the marrying sort."

She stood up, returning for another search of his wardrobe. "I suppose the shirt's good enough. I only need to find some trousers now. I have some time yet to see whether I am to become a murderess, or a renown author, but I'd like to be ready for the play rather sooner than later."


End file.
